Broken Serenity
by SoulMalady
Summary: Harry Potter is running for his life and surrounded by hooded nightmarish creatures. His saviour in the flying blue box is very keen on keeping him alive... Because who wouldn't want to boast about saving the Boy-Who-Lived? Now he's off on an adventure, unwittingly ending up in the middle of a bunch of space cowboys. (Multiple fandoms - Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Firefly)
1. Chapter 1

"Shit," he swore under his breath as his robe snagged onto bare branches a third time, prompting him to shrug it off in a hurry before resuming his frantic race through the thick forest. The trees were too close together. He could hardly see where he was going. He was whipped in the face with leaves and his palms were skinned from the numerous times he had stumbled into rough bark. He made a quick cut to the right, barely slowing down as he switched direction. He ran like the devil was after him.

The Dementors were faster.

His breath fogged up, marring his vision and causing his heart to jump to his throat. He wasn't going to outrun them. How much farther?

His foot caught on a root and he stumbled forward, flailing to grab onto something, anything.

He fell hard instead, banging his knees on the forest floor.

He scampered around, in time to see a horde of hungry Dementors descend on him, shutting away what little moonlight filtered through the thick canopy. His will seeped out of him. His mother screams, growing in volume and intensity as a dozen other voices joined in and echoed with her. He sank to the ground. Violent scenes from the war started playing in his head, images he had shut out years ago. Those scenes erased everything else. There was only despair and pain. He had never imagined dying this way. It was such a cruel way to go…

"Not yet."

A blue police box.

He could only stare at the nonsensical object floating over him for a moment before he was yanked up and thrown sideways.

He shielded his eyes from blinding white light, falling back in a daze. But he didn't end up on the forest floor as he had expected. He felt cold metal under him instead, a smooth gangway. And it was loud. So loud. Louder than the screaming in his ears. His muddled brain couldn't figure it out. He wasn't cold anymore. He wasn't scared…

He peeked out from between his fingers.

He wasn't in the forest.

He blinked at the multitude of brass pipes of different shapes and sizes running over his head. This was _definitely_ not the forest. He scrambled over onto his side, then his front, holding himself up on his scraped hands and knees. "What the hell…?"

"Just my luck!" the Doctor exclaimed as he rapidly typed into a keyboard on the centre console while simultaneously fiddling with dials and knobs in a seemingly random order. "Oh, if they could see me now." He glanced at the bewildered wizard, exhilaration making him a little too excited. "Just my wonderful luck!" He pulled the monitor towards him, peering into the screen to scan the mess of information. "No time to lose!" He let out a triumphant laugh and skidded towards a rather important looking lever. "You better hang on, Mr. Potter." He winked at his guest. "You're in for a ride."

Harry's eyes went wide. "N-no, no, no, no-"

The Doctor cranked the lever down.

The TARDIS lurched, sending Harry flying into a railing. "Oh Merlin," he groaned as he latched onto it for dear life. He squeezed his eyes shut, his brain rattled in his skull when he was jolted this way and that, both with and against gravity, until his ears buzzed and his teeth chattered, echoes of grinding gears, hissing steam, beeping, whirring, clanking, squawking, all around him, chaos-

Just as suddenly as it had all started, it all stopped.

He didn't waste a second.

Unwinding his arms from the cold railing, he crawled to the bright blue door and shoved it open. He barely even noticed that he was perched on a jagged cliff by some unknown sea. He dragged himself out onto damp stone so he could hurl what little food he had left in his stomach. Never again. He was _never_ doing that again.

After he was done, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the grey sky. He was alive. He should be getting his soul sucked dry right now. He probably wouldn't have been found for a couple of days even. Against all odds, he was alive.

Maybe.

He sat up.

A blue police box.

"What?"

Confused, he struggled up to his unsteady feet and staggered forward, resting his hands on the worn wood. He peered around the corner. Four feet deep. He stepped back. Four feet wide. He frowned. Eight feet tall.

He pulled the door open.

"Uh…"

He pushed it shut.

Then opened it again.

"… Okay then…" Maybe he _had_ died after all.

He took a sluggish step to the side to avoid getting bulldozed by the lanky madman that had flown this odd blue box like a maniac.

The Doctor hopped to a halt. "I thought you had run off!" He quickly smoothed his jacket and brushed his hair back, his wide grin hardly wavering. "Harry Potter! What a marvelous honor!"

"Right…"

"You've lost your wand!"

Harry arched a brow. "How did you…?"

"Why else would you run away from Dementors?" With that, the Doctor shoved him right back inside the TARDIS and shut the door behind them. "You _never_ run." He waltzed his way to the centre console. "I've read all your books." He picked up a worn, old copy and showed it off proudly. "I would ask for an autograph, but you don't look too keen at the moment. Maybe later." He tossed the book aside.

"It's… a lot bigger in here, isn't it?" Harry interjected weakly. He waved his hands at the alien machinery before him. "Rather… big…"

"Of course it is. How else would we fit?"

He rubbed his aching head. "Of course," he mumbled to himself. "How else would we fit?"

"Now, Harry Potter." The Doctor clapped his hands together. "Where to?"

"Huh?"

"Where to?"

"What do you mean?"

"All of time and space laid out before you. Everything to explore. Where to?"

"Er… Home?"

"_Home_?!" The Doctor stepped back in shock and offense. "_Home?! _Of all the… You could be… I just asked you to… Why would you… _All_ of time and… _Home?!_"

Harry realized that 'home' was a long way away if this conversation was any indication of things to come.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry fastened the bandage onto the side of his hand firmly while swaying with the motion of the flying TARDIS. He had finally managed to patch himself up using contents from a rather old and dusty first-aid box the Doctor had managed to scrounge up from under the brightly lit center console riddled with levers, buttons, dials, knobs, lights, screens, gears, and various other doohickeys. He had given up on making sense of it after a few minutes of careful examination. He was now sitting on the stairs, wishing he had his wand on him so he wouldn't be in this mess right now. He poked a finger through a rip in his shirt in dismay. Ginny wasn't going to be pleased.

Meanwhile, the Doctor had yet to stop muttering to himself, evidently still miffed that Harry Potter had refused his invitation to travel through _all_ of time and space. "What's so great about home, in any case?" he huffed under his breath as he steered. "I mean, I've got a time traveling machine here, don't I? Home is so boring."

Harry pretended not to hear that.

The Doctor glanced at the Auror out of the corner of his eye. He was sorely disappointed with what he saw. He had been expecting a crime-fighting hero, like in the books. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived… Destroyer of Evil. Master of Death. Arch nemesis of the Dark Lord. The Savior. The Doctor wrinkled his nose. Harry Potter was just a regular person with no sense of adventure. He harrumphed. See if he'd ever trust words on a page from now on. "Not even one _teeny tiny_ visit?" he tried.

Harry rolled his eyes. What is with this imposing man? Why was he so steadfast on showing off his powers? All Harry wanted to do was get home, recover from his Dementor attack with at least eighteen hours of sleep, and then somehow find his wand that was lost in the forest. "Not even one teeny tiny visit," he mumbled tiredly. He was lightheaded, sore all over, and just plain cranky. He appreciated the rescue and all, but couldn't they just stop flying so much. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the cold railing, trying to calm his rolling stomach. Flying on a broom was one thing. At least he could control that. But this damned box… It was going to be the death of him if it didn't start flying a little smoother.

Abrupt and cross alarms started to blare behind him.

Startled, he glanced back to find the Doctor looking all too guilty.

"Not again," he groaned in defeat while latching onto the railing in time to stop from flying across the gangway because a violent lurch.

Sparks flew from the machinery, small explosions making the Doctor jump back and pull out his sonic screwdriver. "Oh dear." He tried to assess the damage, cringing when he realized that he was in deep trouble. "You better hang on, Mr. Potter," he called out over the loud screeching of his protesting TARDIS.

"I _am_ holding on," Harry grumbled.

The Doctor was too busy trying to calm the police box down to hear the quiet complaint. "Look, there's not reason to throw a tantrum," he said sternly when his attempts to stabilize flight kept failing. The TARDIS replied with a wheezing siren. The Doctor winced. "I know, I know." He wafted grey smoke away from a flashing screen so he could take a look at the readings. None of it made sense. They were slipping into some sort of inter-dimensional portal, pulled towards a distress signal. Fighting the force only angered the TARDIS.

The Doctor paused.

"Well…"

He turned to his newest and by far the most reluctant companion he had ever encountered.

"No way!" Harry exclaimed in horror. "Don't look at me like that!"

"I'm afraid we simply have to go on this adventure."

"We don't _have_ to do _anything_! Are you _insane_?!"

"Something like that." The Doctor grinned and reached for a bronze switch. "Allons-y." He flicked the switch, shutting the magnetic shields off.

The portal swallowed the TARDIS with one hungry gulp.

Harry nearly bit his tongue when everything jerked to a hard stop.

The Doctor frowned and looked at some dials. "Hmm." He pressed a few buttons. Nothing happened. The TARDIS let out a quiet sigh, as though falling asleep to recharge. He patted her twice in understanding. "I guess this means we are here."

"Where 'here'?" Harry wanted to know.

The answer came through the door.

A young woman flew into the TARDIS, her dull red dress flowing behind her and her limp black hair disheveled across her pale, shocked face. Her naked feet struck the ground hard, adding to her urgency.

The door slammed shut behind her.

She stumbled to a halt halfway up the gangway when she heard that, as though suddenly realizing that she wasn't where she was supposed to be. She was panting and clutching at the sides of her dress, distress dawning on her face.

Harry stood up slowly. "Are you alright?" he hesitated.

The girl gasped. "No." She spun around and flew back the way she came. "Not here." She pulled the handle. It wouldn't budge. "Oh no, no, no." She rattled knob as hard she could.

"Push. It's a push," the Doctor tried to tell her.

She wasn't listening. "Out! Out!" She had balled up her fists and was pounding on the door, getting more and more hysterical. "Simon! SIMON!" she wailed. "SIMON!"

"You _pulled_ to get in here," the Doctor explained to no one in particular, "so you _push_ to get out."

Harry, in the meantime, was attempting to help the girl. "I'll open it," he kept saying to her while pushing her fists down. "I'm going to open it." It took a little effort to move her away for long enough to twist the doorknob.

The moment the door was open a crack, she burst through.

What he saw when the door fell open fully didn't so much as frighten him as it did confuse him. He found himself on a narrow, slightly rusted catwalk that was framed on one side by a wall crisscrossed with a brown metal lattice and stairs a meter ahead. The other side of the landing revealed an open cargo hold with boxes and scrap metal strewn about on the floor. He wondered if he was in a warehouse of some sort. "Huh…"

"What's this?" The Doctor poked his head through. "Ooh." He pushed Harry out of the way and stepped out, hands at his hips. "A Firefly."

"What?"

"It's a Firefly."

"… What?"

"A spaceship."

Harry paled. "S-spaceship?" He looked around again. "We're on a _spaceship_?!"

The Doctor pursed his lips. "You were just _on_ a spaceship a minute ago, you know?" He pointed at his beloved TARDIS.

"But this is a proper one, isn't it?" Harry exhaled. "I'm on a real spaceship, aren't I?"

Before the Doctor could huff and puff some more, they were interrupted.

"Look. Look at this." The girl from before appeared at the bottom of the stairs behind the TARDIS, stepping out of the hatch and pointing up at the blue police box. She pulled along a bewildered young man behind her. His white shirt was dotted with dirt and blood, especially at the edges of his hastily rolled up sleeves. His dusty shoes stumbled on the stairs as he was dragged upwards. He marveled the oddity standing right in the midst of the landing.

"Ah." The Doctor smiled at the man, easily overlooking his haggard appearance and bloodshot eyes. "Are you the captain? Your ship seems to be malfunctioning. Very angry."

"She is very angry," the girl echoed. "This way." She grabbed the Doctor's hand. Now with two men in tow, she started up the next set of stairs.

"This way, Mr. Potter," the Doctor said cheerfully as he let her lead the way. "This is all very exciting."

"I'm not the captain," Simon stammered, his eyes still on the TARDIS even as he was being pulled along by his sister. "I'm the doctor… Er, how did you get in here?"

Harry, who was following behind the trio, mumbled, "A very good question."

"I'm the Doctor as well," the Doctor announced. "Perhaps I can be of assistance?"

Simon tripped over a step. "Slow down, River."

She shook her head. "No time. We have to go fast." She lengthened her stride.

"Zoe might need me."

"No time." She breezed through an open doorway that led into a warm dining area. It housed a long dining table surrounded by mismatched chairs and shelves with woven baskets, chipped plates, discolored mugs, and jars of preserves stored inside.

On one of the mismatched chairs sat a burly goateed man polishing a revolver with a soft rag. He flicked his beady eyes up at the commotion. "Huh?" He didn't expect to see two strange men in the galley. "What the hell's goin' on?"

"Doctors," River said brusquely, as though that explained everything. She didn't break her stride as she swept past Jayne without a second glance.

"Whoa." He struggled up to his feet in a tizzy and grabbed the first person he could get his hands on, which happened to be Harry. "You." He spun the Auror around. "Wait a gorram minute." He cocked Vera. "What's goin' on?" He pointed the gun menacingly.

Harry was getting fed up with this crap. He grabbed the gun with one hand, Jayne's wrist with the other, and twisted hard. The gun slipped into his palm. "I don't know," he said deliberately. He set the gun on the table. "I'm just as confused as you are," he assured Jayne before sidestepping him to hurry after River and the doctors.

Jayne blinked. "Uh…" Then he looked down at his empty hands. What just happened? He glanced around fervently. No one else had seen it. He snatched his gun up from the table. He'd be damned if that _buhn dahn_ got away with that. He stormed off after them.

Kaylee gawked in amazement when River appeared through the hatch of the engine room. "What is it?" She smiled in slight exasperation when Simon stumbled in. "Ah, you won't be much help," she said apologetically.

"There's someone else…" Simon gestured behind him with a hapless shrug as the Doctor climbed through the doorway, his wide eyes dancing excitedly at the sight of all the exposed machinery around him.

"Oh." Kaylee pulled back. "Where've you come from now?"

"I got your distress call." He was already examining the reaction control tower, his sonic screwdriver buzzing away at the mechanics and analyzing its nuances. "You stressed her too much."

"We had to run." Kaylee approached the strange man carefully. "The secondary thrusters are shot. We'd be dandy if the primary weren't bein' such a _ri shao gou shi bing_."

The Doctor snorted in amusement. "Are you in a hurry?"

"Reavers ain't backin' off. Captain says we need some hard burn in five ticks. I'm tryin' my best, but she's just so tired."

Harry was lost in all this. He was glad to see that the young space doctor looked lost as well. "So… _what's_ happened?" he asked.

Simon shrugged. "Engines aren't running like we want them to." He nodded at the mechanic in brown overalls. "Kaylee is trying to get the ship back on its feet. We have to get out of Reaver country."

"Reaver?"

"Ah, you don't want to know."

Harry didn't argue. This was more than enough information to digest. "We're in space, aren't we?"

Simon gave him an odd look. "Um… Yes. We are."

"It's my first time."

"… I see…"

"Pretty bizarre."

"… I suppose it is."

Kaylee guided River away from some open wiring while explaining the inner workings of Serenity as concisely as she could to the Doctor. "I think the fuel cell might be comin' loose. See this gauge here?" She tapped at a glass dial through which she could see a black needle bouncing back and forth in rapid succession. "Shouldn't be doin' that."

"Power?" The Doctor tapped his forehead. "I have power. Loads of power." He spun around to look at Harry. "We need to zap this beauty to health, Mr. Potter. Back to the TARDIS." He waltzed past them through the door…

… and then waltzed right back in, grabbed Harry by the shoulders, only to thrust him forward. "Angry beardy man with a gun."

Harry slumped at the sight of Jayne.

"You ain't getting' past me this time, funny man." He drew his gun up.

"Jayne! What did I _just_ tell you?!"

He cringed and gritted his teeth before lowering his weapon begrudgingly and turning around to look at Captain Malcolm Reynolds. "I was just bein' diplomatic," he grumbled as he holstered Vera.

After shooting daggers at Jayne for a beat longer, Mal shifted his hard glare at Harry. "What are you doing on my ship?" he demanded to know.

"I think… helping?" Harry faltered.

Mal exhaled heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was dealing with enough nonsense for one day. "Doc, you should be with Zoe, shouldn't you?" he barked.

Simon responded with a quick nod and sidled out of the engine room.

"Take your sister with you."

"Right." He glanced back at River who stuck her tongue out. He raised a brow, silently telling her that he didn't want any arguments out of her. River thought about resisting, but only for a moment. Then she dragged her feet, following her brother out, but not before shooting a longing look at the Doctor and Kaylee.

"Go see Wash, Jayne," Mal added.

"But I-"

"Not buts. Go."

Jayne stomped his foot once and swore under his breath. He knew better than to argue with Mal. He stalked away instead, incensed that he was being made a fool of by idiots.

Kaylee decided to chime in. "The Doctor figures he's got power, Captain."

Mal was surprised. "What's the doctor gonna do?"

"Not _our_ doctor." She pointed emphatically at the Time Lord peeking over Harry's shoulder. "_This_ Doctor."

"Hello," the Doctor greeted. "I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor who?"

"No. Just the Doctor."

Right now, Mal needed a miracle. If it meant dealing with insufferable dolts, he couldn't say no. "Look," he flicked his eyes between the two newest passengers on his ship, "I don't know who you are or what you want, and I ain't askin' if you're here to help, alright? Right now you're weighing us down. So get movin'."

"No time to lose." The Doctor pushed Harry through the hatch. "Try to get that generator running, Kaylee. We'll be right back."

"Excuse me," Harry murmured as he squeezed past the captain of the ship. Once him and the Doctor were out of earshot, he asked, "So is this what you do?"

"What I do?" The Doctor was distracted with the readings on his sonic. "What do you mean?"

"Do you go around helping people like this?"

He paused and looked up at the wizard. "Ah… Helping." He thought about it. "Well, sometimes." They made their way through the dining area. "Or is it most times?" He couldn't be bothered by all that. "Tricky keeping track of these things."

"You said space _and_ time back then," Harry recalled. "Time travel?"

"Of course."

"That's… cool."

The Doctor was glad that Harry Potter was finally coming to his senses. "Yes," he agreed in triumph. "It _is_ rather cool." He bounded down the stairs towards his TARDIS. "And isn't this splendid?" He rubbed his hands together. "Your first time time-traveling and we end up in a Firefly."

"Oh, it's not my first time."

He stumbled over his feet. "What?"

The door to the TARDIS flung open at that moment, startling them.

"Doctor!" A man swept out, greycoat snapping behind him dramatically as he exited the blue police box. His holster was apparent at his hip and the four stripes on shoulders was indicative of…

"You!" the Doctor gaped. "How did you get in _there_?! You can't be in there! What are you doing in there?!"

"Your shields are down."

"Ack!"

He smirked as the Doctor scurried into his ship. "No offense taken." Then he turned to Harry. "He sure likes a warm welcome, doesn't he?" He flashed a charming smile. "Captain Jack Harkness."

"Harry Potter."

The Doctor stuck his head out. "Don't even think about it."

Jack rolled his eyes as he shook the Auror's hand. "I was _just_ saying hello."

"He's married."

"So? Can't say hello to married men? It's hardly the Dark Ages."

Harry raised his brows. This night was one for the books.


End file.
